For centuries East Anglia and the Netherlands have fought a common enemy - sea and river floods.In the first of two programmes Paul Heiney traces the history of East Anglia's efforts to keep the water at bay.He looks at Cambridge fenland, explores the 17th-century drainage works of Dutchman Cornelis Vermuyden and discovers the possible consequences of global warming on this vulnerable region of Britain.

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The second of two programmes in which Paul Heiney explores the battle against flooding in East Anglia and the Netherlands.In the Netherlands he visits the Kinderdijk site, where 19 water-pumping windmills stride across the landscape; stands on land newly reclaimed from the former Zuider Zee; and sees the massive storm surge barrier that was the Dutch response to the floods of 1953.